Activity

Kwanzaa

This is a brief look at another American holiday instead of Christmas

I am not African American, but I wanted my students to learn about more holidays that Americans celebrate. I kept it simple for my students, but feel free to put more details in your own. In the presentation I showed what the holiday was, important items for the celebration, a video of Kwanzaa being celebrated on Youtube. (You will have to add that to slide 8)

Activity: (you will need to cut colored paper into lines, it took me about 5 min to do a stack of red, green, and black.) I explained what each candle means, I chose one of each color for the class to do. They have to write a sentence on each color, they can use their computer to help them. At the end we connected all the paper in color order (like a Christmas chain) with orange tape (like a candle being lit).

Example: 1-1 red- self-determination, black- unity (in the school), green- purpose; for 1-2 red- creativity, black- unity (in class), green- collective work, etc.

My kids really liked learning about this holiday so we did all three colors for the whole class, but if you have a bigger class/less time I would recommend doing one color. I think if you also don't want to make it like a Christmas chain you can use a A3 paper and tape all the papers to make a Kwanzaa flag!

please check out this website to learn more about Kwanzaa incase you've never heard of it/ taught it! It was very helpful to me when double checking my information!
https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/

Files:
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  • Kwanzaa.pptx (15.4 MB)
  • 7
    Submitted by GabrielleAnn December 10, 2024 Estimated time: 15 - 45 min prep: 5 min

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